That’s a hybrid. It’s very cute, but it’s not a wolf. Not a dog either. Kind of sad that a zoo uses resources to breed these rather than conserving wild endangered species or educating about wolves’ actual behaviour in the wild and their role in the ecosystem. The only thing this little guy can do as an ambassador is get people to see wolves are cute and “just like dogs”. Which they’re not. And if his behaviour is more wolf than dog he might be unpredictable…

When we were in university my then wife-to-be had an evening job on campus, after regular class time was over. One night when I came around to walk her home as she was getting off work this professor who lived in a cabin in the mountains above campus came into the building where she worked accompanied by his full-grown, full-blooded, off-leash wolf.

I had never seen a wolf that close before except on TV and in movies, and I thought that it was amazingly cool. As we passed each other in the corridor I paused to look at it and tentatively reached a hand out towards it. Then the wolf looked me in then eye with what looked like great intelligence and an expression that seemed to say, “Don’t be a fucking idiot. I am not a little doggy for you to play with.”

As I withdrew my hand I looked at the mountain man professor and without a word he gave me a look that confirmed, “Don’t be a fucking idiot.”

A few years later my wife and I went to Asia for a couple of years to have adventures and at one point I saw a huge water buffalo standing alone in a field and went over to pet it. The water buffalo turned out to be not very friendly to strangers and I didn’t even have to get as close to it as I did the wolf to get the message, “Don’t be a fucking idiot.”

Then there was the time when we were rock hunting in the desert in the US Southwest in the autumn and I came across a couple of rattlesnakes that were too cold and sluggish to move very quickly but gave a few halfhearted rattles that I didn’t recognize as such until I’d almost stepped on them - and I finally took the hint.

So at this point I consider myself a regular Dr Doolittle when it comes to recognizing when I’m being a fucking idiot with animals.